Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder To Get New Core Rulebooks Soon

It's not just D&D that's getting a 'revised' set of core books--Pathfinder is also getting 'remastered' books! The core rulebooks are being replaced by a new set of books, with new names, but like D&D it is being reiterated that this is not a new edition--"With the exception of a few minor variations in terminology and a slightly different mix of monsters, spells, and magic items, the rules remain largely unchanged."

The existing Pathfinder Core Rulebook, Gamemastery Guide, Bestiary, and Advanced Player’s Guide are being replaced with Pathfinder Player Core, Pathfinder GM Core, Pathfinder Monster Core, and Pathfinder Player Core 2.

These books appear to focus on re-organization and consolidation of existing material rather than substantive changes. They also represent Paizo's move away from the Open Gaming License and towards the new Open RPG Creative (ORC) license. Paizo says "This transition will result in a few minor modifications to the Pathfinder Second Edition system, notably the removal of alignment and a small number of nostalgic creatures, spells, and magic items exclusive to the OGL. These elements remain a part of the corpus of Pathfinder Second Edition rules for those who still want them, and are fully compatible with the new remastered rules, but will not appear in future Pathfinder releases."

Pathfinder 2E - Paizo Reveals Wayne Reynolds' Pathfinder Remastered Cover Sketches

While the final colour pieces won't arrive for a few weeks, Paizo's Erik Mona revealed the cover sketches of the upcoming Pathfinder Remastered core rulebooks while at the GAMA industry trade show yesterday. In an unsual move, you will actually be able to buy special 'sketch' editions of the...

www.enworld.org

 

[Rushbolt]

That really doesn't disprove my point. That just shows that they always intended to get away from OGL as soon as possible. Where does any of that preclude not releasing new Core Books? Where is the lie there? This is starting to get inane.

It's called a lie by omission. People get called on it all the time. I discussed Paizo releasing new books to help new players about a month ago and was laughed at because no one believed Paizo would print new books 4 years after release and no one wanted them. When this statement was made on January 12, nearly all of the readers thought the 2019 Core Rulebook would be reprinted and Paizo was assuring them the OGL would not affect that.

 

[Justice and Rule]

It's called a lie by omission. People get called on it all the time.

Uh...

Just because they don't mention something doesn't make it a lie by omission. The statement you quote has nothing to do with what you talk about and doesn't relate to anything you say: they say they are going to continue focusing on putting out PF2 and SF material, which they are. They talk about how they are going to move away from the OGL, but that it will still appear in some products. That's true. Nothing there would even tangentially relate to a new release of core books.

 

[Justice and Rule]

If you are going to modify you posts that deeply, you might as well just make a new one.

People get called on it all the time. I discussed Paizo releasing new books to help new players about a month ago and was laughed at because no one believed Paizo would print new books 4 years after release and no one wanted them. When this statement was made on January 12, nearly all of the readers thought the 2019 Core Rulebook would be reprinted and Paizo was assuring them the OGL would not affect that.

So first off, I don't know where you discussed this, but it wasn't here because your posting history consists of:

• 1 Post in a 1D&D thread.
• Being angry at Paizo in this thread.
• Posting a thread about how we shouldn't be angry at Wizards (and also why aren't we angry at Paizo?!)

I assume this was a random conversation on another board. If it were here, I suspect people might have been less skeptical of it. But it also misses that (and I can't stress this enough) Paizo has been printing different versions of the Core Rulebook for a while now. They haven't been like Wizards, where they have sold the same book with little changes, they've been making rather notable balance changes to the Alchemist for a while. Again, I have a different version of the CRB compared to someone who bought it today. I don't feel screwed by that.

Further, this statement doesn't say anything about the Core Rulebook being printed in the same format forever. When you lie by omission, you have to at least hint at something. There's not even the whiff of a hint here. There's nothing that indirectly mentions the 2019 Core Rulebook being the inviolable form of the core rules at all. It just says they are going to continue printing material. This isn't a lie by omission, it's a completely unrelated statement.

 

[mamba]

ut in Players 2 (I saw Barbarian for sure) as well as APG classes going in Player 1 (I saw Witch for sure).
I've been reading about it a bit, so I don't remember the exact source, but I recall it was reputable. Maybe on the Paizo blog.

yep, saw it since too. Now each class is in one book instead of some having additional options in the second book, but some were shifted around between books. Overall you essentially need the same number of PHB as before if you want to cover all classes, the rest is probably a wash depending on which classes you need vs which features are spread over two 2e books.

This leaves the GM Guide, which gets magic items, so maybe not optional if you start new, but still not needed if you ‘upgrade’

 

[BigZebra]

Look if I was a PF2 fan, I would be happy. The CRB is really really badly organized, so I would totally find it a worthwhile investment. That doesn't change that I personally found it a bit distasteful to not disclose their plans earlier than they did. Especially after swaths of PF2 fans was parading around social media with "WotC == $apitali$t!!!! They bad"-lectures.

 

[Aldarc]

Look if I was a PF2 fan, I would be happy. The CRB is really really badly organized, so I would totally find it a worthwhile investment. That doesn't change that I personally found it a bit distasteful to not disclose their plans earlier than they did. Especially after swaths of PF2 fans was parading around social media with "WotC == $apitali$t!!!! They bad"-lectures.

If their plans or options were still being explored and discussed behind the scenes, that process takes time. It also would have been premature and potentially far worse for them to disclose any half-baked plans then as opposed to now. Honestly, I don't think that what Paizo has done to be the least bit distasteful. Quite the opposite actually. I read it as a courtesy to their fans and customers.

I remember that one of the results of the OGL fiasco was a fair number of lawyers during that time exposing how vulnerable other tabletop games - not just Pathfinder 2! - were to potential legal action from WotC if they ever, then or at some future time, pulled the trigger on draconian legal actions about their intellectual property or muddy areas of IP expression. That was even after Paizo made its announcements. I suspected even then, that Paizo was probably debating how far they should remove themselves from the OGL and WotC's IP.

Moreover, as there was the spoken comment made by WotC about the 3.X OGL being put into CC, Paizo probably wanted to wait and see whether that would be safe. And while WotC has put the 5e SRD into CC, the 3X rules that were part of the OGL have not been put into any CC. But as game development and revisions take time, Paizo could either sit on their hands and wait for WotC - while new customers buy even more of their core rulebooks - or they could begin work now. They chose to announce that they were working on it now, and I don't think that they made this decision lightly or deceitfully.

 

[Retreater]

A non-conspiracy concern of mine regards the player options in books like Guns and Gears & Dark Archive. Paizo said they're not planning to update these books (only the other four). Gunslinger, Thaumaturge, Inventor, etc, are all found in OGL books. Will Paizo let these go out of print, since they're concerned about getting sued by WotC? (And if you're that concerned, certainly you're worried about PDF sales too - those could also threaten your business.)
Maybe all of these will get upgraded later and just haven't been announced yet? Perhaps these will go in a later Player Core 3?
And then the crunch in their Lost Omens line such as Mwangi Expanse - still has the OGL in that too. Are you going to stop printing lore books too? Pathfinder comic books that have the OGL in the back? What about the CRPGs like Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous?
Either WotC gives you a pass for using the OGL or they don't.

 

[payn]

A non-conspiracy concern of mine regards the player options in books like Guns and Gears & Dark Archive. Paizo said they're not planning to update these books (only the other four). Gunslinger, Thaumaturge, Inventor, etc, are all found in OGL books. Will Paizo let these go out of print, since they're concerned about getting sued by WotC? (And if you're that concerned, certainly you're worried about PDF sales too - those could also threaten your business.)
Maybe all of these will get upgraded later and just haven't been announced yet? Perhaps these will go in a later Player Core 3?
And then the crunch in their Lost Omens line such as Mwangi Expanse - still has the OGL in that too. Are you going to stop printing lore books too? Pathfinder comic books that have the OGL in the back? What about the CRPGs like Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous?
Either WotC gives you a pass for using the OGL or they don't.

I dont think they are very worried about WotC at the moment. I think they want to get the ORC up and running and have their flag ship on it. This also lets third party get in on the new PF2.1 worry free asap. Everything else will come in due time.

 

[Justice and Rule]

A non-conspiracy concern of mine regards the player options in books like Guns and Gears & Dark Archive. Paizo said they're not planning to update these books (only the other four). Gunslinger, Thaumaturge, Inventor, etc, are all found in OGL books. Will Paizo let these go out of print, since they're concerned about getting sued by WotC? (And if you're that concerned, certainly you're worried about PDF sales too - those could also threaten your business.)
Maybe all of these will get upgraded later and just haven't been announced yet? Perhaps these will go in a later Player Core 3?
And then the crunch in their Lost Omens line such as Mwangi Expanse - still has the OGL in that too. Are you going to stop printing lore books too? Pathfinder comic books that have the OGL in the back? What about the CRPGs like Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous?
Either WotC gives you a pass for using the OGL or they don't.

My assumption is that for some of them, they'll just do quiet updates and switch out the OGL for the ORC after they sell-off stock and get ready to do a reprinting. There's less of a reason to do those books as a combination compared to the classes in the APG because the APG also contained a lot of stuff for the original 12 classes. Thus, you add those back in along with the more common archetypes and you get a bunch of class feats that were silo'd off in a separate book.

 

[Remathilis]

That really doesn't disprove my point. That just shows that they always intended to get away from OGL as soon as possible. Where does any of that preclude not releasing new Core Books? Where is the lie there? This is starting to get inane.

They really did seem to imply the system as it stood was only using OGL as a formality for sharing content, and that a future version of the CRB would just swap the OGL page for ORC with the remainder of the book being the same. There was no implication that "in the future, we will make sure our books are 100% divorced from OGL-derrived content."

If I can put on a tinfoil hat for a minute. Pathfinder 1e was a D&D clone that sold itself as being more D&D than D&D was at the time. They hewed very close to the D&D tropes because that was profitable for them. When they came to making PF2e, that wasn't as viable a strategy since D&D had returned to form. So they wanted it to be more their own thing rather than a clone. But they wanted it to feel like a continuation of PF1e and Golarion as well, and that meant keeping some of the bigger tropes to keep it somewhat familiar. Now, four years later they have shown their system is successful, and the OGL is a perfect opportunity to purge the last remnants of D&D out of the system. I have few doubts that they considered removing alignment or ability scores earlier but kept them to create continuity with PF1e and any refugees from D&D. Now, such legacy elements are more of a hindrance and this is their attempt to remove them and further distinguish their game from WotC's.

I am more curious about what legacy monsters and spells get axed or changed. We know about magic missile getting a name change and dragons getting an overhaul, but I wonder about other monsters like owlbear or the selection of giants. Couple that with the problematic ones, I can see a not small part of the bestiary getting changed in some way. That in turn will end up retconning Golarion as it has been known. (For example, many planar monsters, or drow).

But ultimately, it will probably be good for Paizo to tear the scab off and make Pathfinder as distinct as possible by ditching legacy elements. And I can understand people who will be upset by that. I mean, people were upset when WotC changes lore in settings or monsters, I imagine Paizo will be similar.